Never The Same
by AntEater22
Summary: Amelia was left heartbroken after Sam left, but now she knows what he never wanted her to, and she's never going to be the same.


Chapter One  
The Thing

It had been a couple of days, she knew that he wasn't coming back, but for some reason, she really hoped he would. He had made his decision. He had chosen to leave her. If he wanted to be with her, he would be there, he would be with her right sat with her head in her hands, the sound of the TV just background noise to her crappy life. She didn't want to think about Sam, she didn't want to think about how much she missed him, how much he helped her forget about everything. She hated it, she hated him. At least, that's what she wanted to make herself believe. She wanted to hate him, she wanted to forget him, she wanted to make herself think that there was no reason to like him...to love him. That was the reality wasn't it? She loved him, and she couldn't get him out of her head.

She stood up walking to the fridge, pulling out another bottle of beer to match the collection of empty ones on the coffee table. She sat back down on the couch. She laid herself down putting an arm over her face to block out the small house. After a few moments of self-resentment, she felt a warm tongue on her face.

"Max," she exclaimed with a chuckle. She opened her eyes and sat up letting the Labrador puppy on the couch next to her. She had gotten it after Sam left. She gave the one they saved to a friend, it hurt to keep it around. A soft smile played at her lips as a memory slipped into her mind. She was so judgmental of him as he carried the Collie in, of course, she didn't really feel that way about him. She though he was gorgeous, heroic for saving a dog and caring that much about it. He even stayed with it. That was when she started to fall for him, a guy who cared as much as she did about animals. He seemed perfect, he was perfect.

Her face fell as she took a long drink of the beer in her hands. Max gave a small whimper, worried about her. She gave him a reassuring pat on the stomach as he nuzzled her hand. She tried to smile, tried to pretend she was happy, but she couldn't. She wasn't.

"I guess it's going to be a couch night," Amelia said as she trudged to her room. She pulled the blanket and pillows off of the bed dragging them back out to the living room. She couldn't remember the last time she slept in the room. It was too quiet. Too lonely. She felt she was slowly going insane without Sam. "Come on, Amelia," she mumbled to herself, "you didn't even know the guy that long. Why are you so hung up over him?" She couldn't answer the question, she knew she couldn't.  
With a sigh, she threw the linen on the couch sitting back down to take another drink. She took the remote switching the channel to the news. The anchor spoke with a monotonous voice about a crazed murderer. "Victims are found slaughtered, brutally, with their hearts missing. This killer only strikes at night, woman and children are advised to stay inside at night and have a weapon at hand at all times. If you have any information..." she switched the channel again rolling her eyes. Every week it was something else. Missing hearts, no blood, glazed eyes, missing heads, a new killer with some new weird quirk.

Amelia settled back against the pillows clicking on to a late night soap opera. She was too tired to actually pay attention to the dramatic and predictable plot line. He eyelids started to slip shut. The bottle, now empty in her hands, slid to the carpeted floor with a thud. He breathing slowed to a relaxing state. Her mind began to clear and she slowly tip-toed toward unconsciousness.

A thud brought her back to reality. She jumped to attention looking around the room. Max was at her side, his ears perked, his teeth bared. He was staring at the front door. The TV had somehow turned off in her state of dozing. She stood slowly wielding a bottle as a weapon. She jumped at the sound of another thud against the door, quickly followed by the sound of something sliding down the wood. She walked to the door, her footsteps silent on the shag carpet. A weak whimper crept past the wood and into her ears. The hairs on her neck stood as she put her hand on the cold metal of the doorknob. The moments seemed to lengthen as she turned the knob and pulled the door open. She felt a shriek escape her throat as an inhumane figure fell at her feet covered in thick red liquid. Quickly she realized it was blood and the inhumane figure was Don. She dropped the bottle in shock and knelt to help him.

"Help...please help me," he breathed. She used all of her strength to pull him into the house shutting the door behind him. She sat him against the wall lifting his chin to inspect him. She let out a small gasp at the long, deep, gashes from his collar to his waist.

"Don! What happened? Who...who did this to you?" She opened the cabinet under the television pulling out the first aid kit and her cell phone dialing 9-1-1 for an ambulance.  
He reached up holding onto her wrist with a surprising amount of strength, his eyes wide, unblinking. "Not...not who. What...it wasn't human, Amelia."  
She nearly dropped the phone looking at him. She could hear through the receiver a soft voice asking for her emergency. Don continued to speak through troubled breaths, "It had...it had animal teeth. It's eyes were...it had huge nails. Like a wolves...Amelia...it wasn't human." She stared at him, at his wounds. He was looking right through her, remembering the horrific event he had just experienced.

Snapping herself out of her confused and dazed state, she began to clean the wounds, bandaging them best as she could until she could hand him off to a doctor. He continued to stare, unmoving, not blinking, at the wall. Amelia heard a siren in the distance. Relieved to know they had gotten there without her telling them the address, she ran to a closet to get a towel. She pressed them to Don's wounds in a feeble attempt to stop the blood flow from his body.  
"You're going to be alright, Don," she said, not believing a single word of it.

The sirens sounded as if they had been outsider her door for some time now. She furrowed her brows confused about why there were no EMT's in her house. Don continued to stare off into nothingness as she pressed the cotton against him. With an aggravated sigh, she placed his hand against the cotton hoping he would press it there himself. She got up walking toward the door. A hand on her ankle not only startled her, but stopped her.

Looking down, she saw Don's terrified eyes boring into her own. "Don't go out there." That was all he had the chance to say before realization struck her. Slowly she backed away from the door hearing muffled shrieks. The EMT's weren't avoiding coming into the house...they couldn't.

Just then Max began to growl. His eyes were fixed on the door, Amelia stared in horror. Time became irrelevant as her heart became the only sound in the house. She felt herself frozen in place as the shrieks suddenly stopped. Someone...something, had turned off the sirens. Suddenly the door was broken and she was on the floor beside Don. She felt a scream frozen in her throat as she faced what had killed Don and probably all the medics.

A bit of thick blood dripped from the thing's snout onto her face. It's sharp teeth were bared, it's eyes a glowing yellow. It looked like a deformed human, like someone had tried a horrible experiment mixing animals and people together. The thing looked to Don first, the man it hadn't finished off. Then the yellow orbs locked on Amelia. A sickly grin spread across the creatures face as it stared. Just as it lunged Amelia sprang to her feet running for her room. From the doorway to her bedroom she saw it standing over Don. She screamed watching it dig it's nails into his chest. She felt her stomach wretch as it brought out his heart, still pumping, still fresh. She struggled not to fall over from fear. It devoured the heart almost whole, and Don was dead.

After it's gruesome snack, it looked once again to Amelia. With a growl it ran to the room with lightning speed. Trying to buy time, she slammed the door shut, it quickly tore it down. She pulled the engraved knife from the wall, an old family heirloom. The thing glared at the knife for a moment and it's growls grew louder. It pounced on top of her throwing her to the ground. She shrieked holding it by its throat attempting not to let it bite her. With a surprising burst of strength she threw the beast off and onto her bed. Working with what little adrenaline she had left she threw herself on top of it. Luckily it had landed on its stomach, she had the upper hand. She brought the knife up and began stabbing the back of its head with as much force possible. She ripped the flesh of its disturbing facial features watching as the knife seemed to sear through it. Her ears rang with the wails of the thing under her.

She lost track of how much time she spent stabbing the horrible thing underneath her. She finally stopped after she realized it had stopped fighting back. She sat on it breathing heavily. Slowly she climbed off of it and walked back out to the crime scene that was her living room. Max seemed to have run out of the door. Not surprising, poor thing was probably terrified.

It didn't take her long to realize that she couldn't stay there for long. She packed her bag with only essentials. A laptop, she needed to know what that thing was. Clothes, her phone, her wallet, her keys, her first aid kit, and all the knives in her kitchen. If she ran into something like that again, she needed to be ready.

Walking outside, she threw the bag into the trunk of her car. With a second thought, she climbed into an ambulance and took some things she figured she may need. Bandages, syringes, medication, so on. She threw them into the trunk and searched the deceased polices officers for weapons. She searched the cars for ammo. After everything was in the trunk, she got in the car and sped off.

She didn't know what she was going to do, but she knew she was never going home. And she knew she was going to figure out what that thing was.


End file.
